solicitors fees for executing a will

[kaylasmum]

Hi just wondering if anyone knows how much percentage of the deceaseds estate will a solicitor charge for executing the will.

TIA for any replies.

From what I remember of DH being an executor on a couple of wills, 'Too much'. If a particular solicitor is actually named as an executor, theres not much you can do about it, but otherwise, you can negotiate and find one who will (if its better for you) a fixed fee or hourly rate.

Not all solicitors charge a percentage, many will charge by the hour. It is always advisable to try and sort out as much as you can yourself, so that you aren't paying a solicitor to do work that you could easily do yourself (e.g. informing pensions providers/banks etc of the death).

As Lilymaid says, most will charge an hourly rate. My mum's estate is just going through probate and the charging rate is £200 ph plus VAT. I did as much of it myself, ie informing banks, pension company etc) but had to leave the lawyers to do the rest as I just wasn't up to doing it.

£200ph! thats a huge amount! I wonder how many hours it takes them to finalise everything. That could be a lot of money.

Oh and there is a solicitor appointed to deal with the estate.

You can sort it out yourself from small, medium and straightforward large estates. There are loads of useful guides to probate online and I know several people who have done it.

You can also get a firm of solicitors removed as executors. Guardian Money ran a good article a few months ago. I'll have a quick look for it.

Here

Justanother I was going to suggest a read of the very same article!

We were lucky enough to have a friend of the family help out. A solicitor himself, he also told us what to do ourselves and how much it would usually cost.

Apparently you can negotiate on percentage, (at least when you are choosing one).

thanks for the info!

I read the article, it's quite shocking really. How can they get away with that?

Unfortunately the solicitors have been dealing with it for that last 7 months so there will be no chance of changing that now. The estate is worth 400,000 so looks like the solicitors are going to get a huge cut.